


nothing short of a miracle

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson thinks Skye's powers are awesome, Coulson thinks about destiny, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, POV Phil Coulson, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, fluffy!Coulson, to hell with destiny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:31:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3561374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson believes in miracles. And then, he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing short of a miracle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



He's thinking about Italy.

He's thinking about Italy, weirdly enough – he's thinking about that cold cellar in Quinn's villa. He's thinking about that while he and Mack try to push the temple doors, broken down in pieces, aside so they can go get Skye.

They can't.

The walls won't budge, they will just fall.

In the next minutes, after Mack drags them both out of there, it becomes obvious that Trip was down there as well. Once the earth stops shaking Coulson has to make some decisions. There's no one else – it's always going to be this way, there's never going to be anyone else.

While he thinks she died down there the world is strangely quiet, almosy calm. May asks if he thinks Skye's father broke something, when he doesn't answer the med team – he meant to, he just didn't hear them – and he shakes his head. Skye had survived so much. She survived Italy. She survived Ward. She is not supposed to go down like this.

He doesn't find her this time – he keeps thinking about the cellar.

It's the recovery team the ones who find her, unscathed among the ruins of the chamber. Besides Trip, what remains of him.

At first he thinks it's a cruel joke, when they tell him – Skye's alive. No, that can't be. It would be a miracle. Then he sees her, she's actually there in front of him, and he understands: _it is_ a miracle.

She's more shell-shocked than hurt, when they bring her out.

He can't touch her. She's trapped behind a glass, giving a bare account of what happened inside the temple. He watches as they give her something to help her sleep. He pulls up a chair next to the quarantine area. He left her alone down there. He's not doing that again.

 

+

 

"Skye, will you open the door?"

"Not right now," she says. There's something in her voice. Something that is not sure. Skye always sounds so sure. This is more than strange, it's heartbreaking. "It's still... not safe."

He waits.

He sits on the floor next to the door and he hears Skye do the same.

There's a cruel irony (perhaps not, but he can't talk about that), that they were just living in this plane for months and months, and that this cell is the only thing on the planet that seems to be able to contain Skye's power. He's sure Skye thinks of this place with relief – a place where she can't hurt anyone – but Coulson just hates the idea of a cage for her.

"Why didn't you tell us?" he asks her, after a while. Then he realizes that might sound judgemental and that's the last thing she needs right now. "I'm not criticizing the decision. I just – I want to know what you're thinking.."

He just wants to know what's in her head and her heart.

"At first I didn't want to believe it," she says. Coulson can only imagine her face, and it's almost a blessing. "I thought I must have been wrong. How could I have done that. Then I was just hoping... that it'd never happen again."

"But it did."

"And the way everybody was acting. Fighting. And Fitz thought so too, he wanted some time to figure this out, said that it'd be safer for me, and everybody..."

"Bobbi told what happened in the lab. What you heard. How you walked away."

"I wasn't angry at them," she says, like she needs to clear that up. Coulson wonders why not. Maybe she should be angry. He gets what the others are doing, why they are reacting this way – he can even understand Simmons, in a way. They're good people in an impossible situation. But Skye should be allowed to be angry about it, anyway. Why wouldn't she have that at least? "It just..."

"What?"

"It brought back a lot of stuff for me," Skye says.

"From your childhood."

"Yeah." She pauses. He knows she doesn't talk about it. "People used to talk behind my back. The nuns, case workers, other kids. People used to talk _a lot_ behind my back."

"This is not like that," Coulson offers.

"I know," she replies. "It just... bad memories, that's all. I thought I had forgotten."

They stand in silence for a moment, because if Coulson is at an absolute loss about what he can do for Skye right now, to comfort her, there will never be anything he can do about her past.

And he knows he should be thinking about solutions, about how to keep the team safe. But he's not. He's not acting like the Director of SHIELD right now. Because he finds it very hard to think of Skye as something scary. He saw the destruction in the city. He felt the shaking in the Playground. Intellectually he knows she's a risk. He just can't believe that.

"I am so sorry," she says, and he can hear it in her voice, she's fighting tears. "About everything."

"It's not your fault."

"At some point it has to start being my fault," she says.

"What do you mean?"

"That's another thing I learned as a kid," Skye tells him, her voice a thread through the thick door of the cell. "That at some point it's not just bad luck, it's not just that people want to hurt you. It has to be your fault, in a way. Because if not... it makes no sense at all."

Coulson grits his teeth, doesn't reply.

He refuses to believe Skye survived death itself unharmed for _this_.

 

+

 

He thought it would work, but it doesn't. He thought things would sort themselves out, but they don't.

"You are leaving, I know," he says. The hangar is almost in darkness. "You don't have to slip away in the middle of the night."

"I wasn't in the mood for a fight."

Her eyes shine with resolution. He hasn't really known Skye to be anything other than this.

"I'm not going to fight you," Coulson tells her.

She looks at him, wary.

She studies his face. Coulson knows the evidence of his latest encounter with Skye's father is still evident on his face.

"As long as I'm around, you are not safe," she says. "None of you, really. Not for now."

He nods. 

She's made her decision – and he doesn't think she's wrong. He's not going to stand in her way. She travels light but would anyone think any different of Skye.

He gives her bag an amused look. "But you don't have to hitchhike your way out of here."

"What do you suggest?" she asks, somewhat humorously as well.

He's been thinking about it.

He grabs her wrist and takes her hand in his, palm upside. He places the keys there.

Skye understands immediately.

"I thought it was –"

"It's not completely repaired," he says. "Halfway there. But she drives. And I hope you will not be needing the advance defense systems." She tries a smile for him. "You can turn off the GPS if you want. We won't know where you are."

The way she looks at him, Coulson undertstands that last bit was the important one.

"This is..."

"Lola will keep you safe," he tells her.

"Coulson..."

Even though the idea of life, daily life, without her, is unthinkable, Coulson is glad he can finally, _finally_ , do something for her, among this mess. Even if that something turns out to be give her a gentle push out of the door.

"I knew you wanted to leave," he admits. "I've known the last couple of days. I know a sense of loyalty was holding you back. But I want you to know it shouldn't. You're not doing anything wrong."

Skye looks around, a big gulp of air, that gesture she does when she's trying to bite back tears. Coulson is not supposed to know that gesture. Someone like Skye shouldn't have to have such a gesture. It's all just sad and unfair.

"You need me," she says. Half incriminating, half-hopeful.

"Of course," Coulson tells her. "But you need you first. Everything else... can wait."

She draws her hand across her forehead.

"I just – I can't bear feeling like I'm always putting you at risk."

And even though that is really stupid, it's not stupid _to her_. Everyone knows she's not responsible for what her deranged father might do, and she never asked for her powers. Everyone knows but Skye. They have to work from there.

"You need to know that's not true," he says. "You think this is the way?"

She nods, her eyes shining.

"But the team..."

He wraps his fingers aroung her arm tenderly. Skye doesn't like people touching her these days, she thinks it's not safe (it might not be, Coulson doesn't care). She stares at his hand on her arm, like it's something alien. He gives her a little squeeze, to let her know it's fine.

"You're part of this team," he says. "And you'll still be when you come back."

Taking advantage of the fact that he already has her arm in a grip Coulson pulls gently and tugs Skye closer to him, pressing his mouth against hers.

It's meant to be some kind of goodbye kiss, something sweet, but it doesn't feel like goodbye. Skye freezes under his lips but Coulson wasn't expecting anything different. He wasn't expecting anything. Except, maybe, to open a door. And to give Skye something different. Not exactly normal – for they are not exactly normal – but something that doesn't have to do with her powers, or her crazy father, or any other impending doom she can imagine. Something to focus on that feels more like life.

She doesn't kiss him back and that's okay too.

When he pulls back her eyes are very wide. He knows it's not fair, doing this before she leaves. But that way she'll have time to think about it, with enough distance, without his presence to affect her decision.

"Coulson," she breathes, so surprised.

He touches her cheek.

"We'll talk when you come back. Okay?"

Skye takes a moment, staring at him, trying to decipher his neutral expression. Then she nods, picking up her bag.

 

+

 

When she comes back she comes back with Lola intact, which he hadn't exactly predicted.

She comes back in the middle of the night, just as she left, while everybody sleeps, like she didn't want the attention. Coulson tries to tell the places she's been by the look on her face, and she's been somewhere, he can tell, and it's changed her, but she remains unreadable.

"I want to show you something," she says, tugging at his arm.

She is half-smiling, which is a good sign.

She brings Coulson to a corner.

"Take out your gun," she tells him.

"It's the middle of the night, why do you –"

"Come on, Coulson, I know you must have something on you."

He takes the ICER he has with you from its holster.

"Okay, point it at me," she instructs.

"I'm not going to point my gun at you," Coulson says.

Skye rolls her eyes, a soft frustrated sigh escaping her lips.

"It's just an ICER, and I'm not asking you to actually shoot me."

"Skye –"

"I'm trying to show you something cool," she insists. Then her eyes soften. "Trust me?"

He nods, raising his gun towards her. It feels wrong.

Skye's expression changes, becomes serious and focused.

For a moment nothing happens, and it feels wrong to keep aiming at her like this.

Then –

Suddenly Coulson feels the gun shake for a moment in his hand and he hears the click of the release, the magazine falling to the floor.

Well, that's... very practical, actually, if he thinks about it. He's impressed by the precision, as well.

"You've learned all that in a few weeks?" he asks.

She walks up to him and helps him pick up the mag.

"At first I could only destroy stuff, basically. That trick took a bit."

"Impressive," Coulson comments.

"There are people who have prepared all their lives for the transformation. Since they were born, Coulson. A whole _community_."

And she sounds so excited.

He nods. The idea of Skye finding a home does make him happy in a way, but a home so far away, a home that does not include the team or them, that's harder. He tries hard to give her a smile without cracks.

"A community," he repeats. "That's good."

"I admire them," she says.

"Then you should have stayed."

She shakes her head.

"I appreciate the help, I _needed_ it but... my place wasn't really with them. It would have been the easy thing to do, staying. But it wouldn't have been right."

He wonders if she's just saying that for his benefit, for everybody's benefit. He doesn't want Skye to stay away but he wouldn't want her pretending either.

"Are you sure? You don't have to be somewhere you don't want to."

Coulson watches her take a moment before replying, like she's considering the words one by one.

"What I am now... what I became, yes, this is me now. I don't want to stop it or deny it. But that's not all I am. I'm part of _this_ team. I'm an agent of SHIELD. And I'm..."

She stops herself, biting her bottom lip.

"What, Skye? What?"

She grabs the back of his neck and pulls him towards her.

It's not the sweet and light kiss Coulson gave her when she left, meant as a proposition or a hope. Her delayed reply is unwavering, brave. She slides her tongue into his mouth with conviction. It's a proper kiss, finally. Coulson didn't think, with everything that was happening to her, that Skye would be thinking much about a simple kiss out there. It seems like she has been thinking about it, after all. Her fingers skim over the exposed skin of his neck, right above the collar of his shirt, while her tongue presses against the roof of his mouth for a moment. Coulson lets out a loud, pleased sound.

Skye peels him away from her, smilrking.

"What? Did you think I would have forgotten?"

"I... I wasn't thinking much that night," he confesses.

He might the one who started it but he admits he doesn't feel as brave now. He finally understands Skye _is_ something scary, but not in the way everyone else thinks, not because she could split the planet in half someday.

"Now it's your move," she tells him.

 

+

 

She's a miracle.

Everybody is wrong about her.

An _abomination_.

Coulson could laugh at that word, as he traces the curve of her hipbone with trembling, reverential fingers, as he kisses the top of her thigh to anchor them both. She curls her own fingers around his hair, sighs a lot that night, like something finally falls into place when Coulson pushes his tongue inside her. She's tired from travelling, her body arching lazily under Coulson's touch. She pulls him to her afterwards, Coulson kissing the inside of her elbow as he rests his head on her shoulder. She's tired from travelling and she soon falls asleep, a healthy dreamless sleep Coulson guards from time to time, his own sleep interrupted often by the sudden fear that his life is going to snap back to the days of her absence. He could barely stand that, he wants to tell her, ridiculous how much he missed her, and maybe it's a good thing she sleeps so soundly tonight and she doesn't get to hear those embarrassing words.

 

+

 

He didn't think it could work – good things never do, with him – but it does, and Skye keeps defying expectations. She has faith in this, when Coulson is finding it hard to have faith in anything other than her these days. These days are just like always: chaos, destruction, pain, the occassional spoonful of Hydra trying to rebuild their empire. Their lives. (Their lives together now) And every time Coulson tries to pull away Skye holds him in place. It works.

Perhaps thanks to the mission they don't have much time to overanalyze things.

Perhaps thanks to her father's attempts at tearing their appart they find easier to present a united front.

Perhaps they have humble ambitions, they just want to be together.

Something simple, when their lives have been anything but.

But it was all just a reprieval.

In the end destiny finds them.

Or the idea of it does.

"You knew this," Skye points out.

"The idea came up. The coincidence –"

"Coincidence?" she protests. "You being brought to life with blood of the people who – who _made me_. How come you haven't talked about this with me before?"

Her face falls when she realizes he's known about this for a long, long time.

He didn't think it would come up, because he hoped it wouldn't. Because it doesn't matter. Because her absence all those weeks made Coulson realize the insignificance of such theories.

It doesn't matter, he wants to tell her.

But Skye is already thinking, already wondering, and already pulling away.

Coulson doesn't know how to keep her in place.

 

+

 

Again in the middle of the night. It might start feeling like something they do.

"You are leaving again?" he asks.

She stops, taking a moment before turning around and facing him.

Skye has the oldest, saddest face he's seen her yet.

Ever since they found out more about her real origins, about the Kree masterplan for people like her, it's been like that.

"I can't be around you," she says.

She starts walking and he follows.

He tries not to remember what her first absence had felt like. He tries very hard to figure out what's the best thing for Skye, even if it turns out that she really needs to walk away.

"Of course you can," he says.

She looks annoyed at his non-chalant manner.

"Not if you're only with me because..." she gestures towards his body in general. "Because of what's inside you."

"Skye. No one has said that."

"But it's a possibility."

He shrugs. "Anything can be a possibility."

"Coulson," she says.

That voice. At least it's intimate, the way she says his name, the way she tells him to cut the crap. That's something. She's not giving up.

"Sorry," he says.

She's stopped walking across the garage.

"With all we've learned... how can you be so calm?" Skye asks him.

He finds it easy, which surprises him. Then again Skye is the one in the difficult situation. He knows what he feels. Skye knows what _she_ feels. 

"Because I don't believe it means anything," Coulson tries to explain. "It changes nothing."

"It changes everything. You're like – I don't know – my Kree slave," she shrugs. "Or something."

"It's just a theory."

"Well, it's enough to make you wonder, isn't it?"

He doesn't wonder. He did, for a while.

He sees something ugly in Skye's expression, the shadow of a thought. When Coulson did wonder it was before, before they started. Now she must be going back to all those nights in each other's arm, she must be thinking – 

"We haven't done anything wrong," he tells her, shaking her out of it. Or at least drawing her attention back to himself.

"No. But. _Think about it_. You've done a lot of things for me," Skye says. "Crazy things even."

No, he doesn't need a list. He has done those things. And he used to wonder why. Until everything became very clear.

"So have you, for me," he points out.

That's the wrong move.

"Yeah and how do we know that's not because I'm a weapon and you have blood from the Kree who's supposed to wield me?" she asks.

Coulson shakes his head. "You can't think like that."

"I can," she replies, raising her voice. " _I am_ thinking like that."

"I don't think we'll ever find the truth for sure and –"

"Exactly," she cuts him off. "We'll always wonder."

But he wouldn't. He doesn't.

Coulson tries to pull her into a hug. She hesitates, pressing her face against his shoulder but in a stiff way.

"What if it's true?" she says, no longer angry but sad. "That you were only drawn to me because you were _supposed to_."

He shakes he's head and this time his mouth brushes against Skye's temple. "I refuse to believe that."

He feels her press the palms of her hands flat against his chest – a hundred times she has done that gesture in a loving way, not to push him away like now. Coulson lets her, lets her push him away. 

He understands why Skye can't be the one to have faith now, this one time. Because in the end she would be responsible for it. Because she still thinks at some point it starts being her fault. 

"Skye... Would you listen to me for a moment?"

She blinks at him.

She nods.

"Okay."

He runs his hands down her arms.

"Maybe there's some truth in that. But. _Think about it_. You were meant to be a weapon, and maybe I was meant to protect you or help you. Except that's not what happened, in the end. You are a hero and I fell in love. So whatever the truth is, whatever we were meant to be, I think we've already veered off that script."

Skye looks at him. He never thought the word _pleadingly_ would ever apply to her. But here they are.

"It's just us," he adds. "There's no one else here. It's us. And to hell with the rest."

"How can you be sure?" she asks.

Because he's never been more sure of anything in his life.

Because without intervention he'd be exactly in the same place, he'd be here with her. He doesn't tell her that – it sounds somehow unreasonable and he guesses Skye needs reassurance now. But he would have fallen in love just the same, Kree or no Kree. There was never any other possible outcome.

Except that's not easy to explain to her. Not right now.

He kisses her.

He knows he can't put everything he feels for her – how glad she's in his life, and how little he cares about the reason that came to be in the first place – into one kiss. But Coulson tries, anyway.

It goes on for a bit and Skye kisses him back despite her doubts, and that says a lot, that's Skye in a nutshell, all that faith. Coulson thinks he might have caught a bit of that, a bit of her boldness, because he would never have said those things before meeting her. And anyone who thinks that might be because some twisted version of fate and not Skye's honest intervention obviously doesn't know Skye at all.

He breaks the kiss by degrees, brushing his mouth against the corner of her lips a couple of times before completely ending it, letting it linger for a while. 

Skye smiles a bit, shakily, wrapping her fingers around Coulson's wrists very tightly. He breathes. She is not going to let him go.

"Okay," she says, light coming back to her voice. "Good point, Director."

She brings their mouths together again, like she is making sure, completely sure.

Maybe they will never be completely sure.

Maybe that's not the point at all.

He lets Skye kiss him, learn that familiarity again. They've done this many times in the last couple of months but Skye's kiss feels uncertain like a first one. Not in a bad way. He strokes the side of her face when she finishes, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He knows he can't keep her in place by force or by words. He'll just have to be brave and have faith.

"The point is: I don't think we should let anyone but us define what we are," he tells her.

She touches her nose against his cheek. Coulson feels her nod slightly. He breathes.

Then Skye slaps his shoulder in a friendly way.

"Hey," she complains. "I'm normally the one saying _Screw it, let's do this_ ," she says, drawing her fingers across the length of his tie. "When did you get so rebellious?"

He raises one eyebrow. "I've had a good teacher."

She chokes out a tiny chuckle and it is enough.

It is enough.

 

+

 

Skye is snoring softly against the crook of his elbow.

She sleeps like she hasn't slept in days. Even though Coulson knows that's not true. But there's a heaviness in her dreaming, not entirely unpleasant, that he can feel in the weight resting on his body.

People get caught up in the stragest notions. Fate. Destiny. Alien blood. Kree Preordination. Coulson doesn't get it. Things are a lot more simple than that. Things are tangible, like the woman sleeping in his arms, like her love for him, like the brown nail polish she wears today. Things you can touch. Of course Coulson was meant to protect her, but not as part of some grand cosmic plan. He was meant to always protect her for the same reason she was meant to protect him.

Skye stirs awake, pressing her face against the inside of Coulson's arm. Her face looks sad for a moment.

"Bad dreams?" he asks. He's learned to tell when she has bad dreams. And she knows _his_ bad dreams intimately.

She nods. But she smiles at him. "But nice waking up."

Just like that she's back to that role. The one who has faith, the one who defies expectations, the one who keeps Coulson anchored. Knowing that if she falters he can do that, too, be all those things too.

She turns on her side, rolling against his chest, burying her face there, mouth against the fabric of his t-shirt and – 

Right there, Coulson thinks. Where his scar rests. Fitting, he thinks. And in a way absolutely meaningless.

He smiles. Embarrassing words when she can't hear them. But this time Coulson wouldn't mind if she did. Maybe he'll repeat them, when she's awake.

People come up with the strangest things. Fate. Destiny. Miracles.

It's a lot more simple than that.


End file.
